doing a little analysis on the viability of rock climbing gym's resulted in this chart:

which I would interpret as indicating that rock gyms below about 7,000 sq ft (as stated by the gym) have a 25% closure rate over the last 10 years whereas gyms above 11,000 sq ft are all still open.

I gathered this data by looking at the "Rock Gyms" section of Climbing magazine, using the ad's statements of size in the issues from about 2007 to 1999 (one a year, equally spaced). From that list I went online to see if the gym was open or closed... in some cases that couldn't be determined (I didn't use these indeterminate cases, but in retrospect if a gym doesn't have a web site it probably isn't open for business).

Of the small gyms still open, they are either a part of some larger facility or in areas not served by other gyms (usually smaller population centers).

The question to the rockclimbing.com community is:

What is it about the size of the rock gym that affects your decision to climb there?